ABR QoE Management Unit for OTT Bandwidth Throttling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing video distribution systems face challenges in maintaining consistent Quality of Experience (QoE) for multiple devices streaming Over-The-Top (OTT) content simultaneously, while managing bandwidth effectively to avoid data throttling and exceeding data caps, especially with adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming technologies that prioritize individual device needs without considering network congestion.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of an ABR QoE Management Unit, which can be integrated into OTT Gateways, home Wi-Fi routers, or cable modems, manages bandwidth by assigning priorities to OTT providers and devices using Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ) systems, determining data caps, and throttling traffic within specific virtual pipes to optimize overall network usage and QoE across multiple devices and providers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If ABR clients independently select bit rates without coordination, then each device can maximize its own video quality, but network congestion occurs and overall QoE deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements a centralized coordinator that collects bandwidth decisions from all ABR clients and adjusts their bit rate selections based on overall network conditions. This feedback mechanism prevents individual clients from making greedy decisions that would congest the network, thereby maintaining both video quality consistency and network throughput efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
A coordinator entity acts as an intermediary between multiple ABR clients and the network infrastructure. This intermediary receives bandwidth decisions from clients, evaluates overall network capacity, and redirects clients to appropriate bit rate streams that optimize both individual video quality and overall network utilization.
2Ease of operation
If multiple devices stream video simultaneously without bandwidth management, then user convenience is improved, but data caps are exceeded and throttling occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary bandwidth allocation and coordination before video streaming begins. The coordinator pre-negotiates bit rate assignments with multiple clients based on available network capacity and data cap constraints, ensuring that simultaneous streaming remains convenient while reliably staying within data caps.
Solution Approach 2:
The bandwidth allocation system dynamically adjusts bit rate assignments for multiple devices based on real-time network conditions and remaining data cap capacity. This dynamic coordination allows flexible multi-device streaming while maintaining reliable compliance with data cap limits.
Data Source
AI summary
An Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) Quality of Experience (QoE) Management Unit manages bandwidth usage and QoE at a customer premises where multiple client devices independently download content from multiple providers. An overall virtual pipe to the premises includes a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) inner pipe, a non-HTTP inner pipe, an ABR inner pipe, and a non-ABR inner pipe. The Unit determines a data cap for a current billing cycle; and determines, based on policy management settings and the data cap for the current billing cycle, at least one of: a bandwidth cap for the overall virtual pipe, a bandwidth cap for the HTTP inner pipe, a bandwidth cap for the non-HTTP inner pipe, a bandwidth cap for the ABR inner pipe, and a bandwidth cap for the non-ABR inner pipe. Responsive to the determination of the bandwidth caps, the Unit throttles traffic within at least one of the inner pipes.